Periwinkle
by inkstainedfingers97
Summary: Patrick Jane lay on his couch with his eyes closed, thinking about the latest mystery in the Serious Crimes Unit. It wasn't a murder, for once. It wasn't even a crime. No, the mystery was simply this: Lisbon had left early, and he wanted to know why.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Warning: Extreme fluff ahead. If you are looking for any kind of serious plot, you should probably turn back now.

Disclaimer: Again, I think these things are pointless. It seems pretty obvious that I'm not making any money off this. It's just for fun.

xxx

Patrick Jane lay on his couch with his eyes closed, thinking about the latest mystery in the Serious Crimes Unit.

It wasn't a murder, for once. It wasn't even a crime. No, the mystery was simply this: Lisbon had left early, and he wanted to know why.

Well, technically she had left at five o clock, but for Lisbon that was practically like playing hooky. He must figure out what had prompted this sudden adherence to her official work schedule.

Of course, she had muttered something about yoga as she was leaving, so one might say that assuming that she had left early to go to yoga class was a safe bet, but Jane didn't quite believe it. Since when was Lisbon so dedicated to an activity that didn't involve guns or some other kind of projectile such as a baseball or a hockey puck?

She had left with Van Pelt, however, which seemed to lend some weight to her claim that she had indeed gone to yoga class. Van Pelt was a health nut and seemed intent on spreading this affliction to the other members of the team. She went to yoga nearly every day and had long ago announced that everyone on the team had an open invitation to join her. She didn't give up when no one jumped at the offer, though. She'd accosted each of them independently, as well. She'd even asked Jane, though of course he'd declined. Cho had just stared at her blankly and went back to his book without dignifying her request with a response when she asked him. Rigsby, presumably the most vulnerable of them all, due to his general inability to deny the red-haired agent anything she asked of him, managed to mumble some unintelligible excuse likely borne of his reluctance to put himself in too close of proximity to his ex-girlfriend while she wore those form-fitting yoga outfits.

Jane's brain detoured for a moment as he imagined Lisbon in tight yoga pants and a tank top, her bare shoulders pale, with a smattering of freckles—

He forced his mind to revert back to the task at hand. The rest of the team had found it easy enough to beg off of joining Grace in her favorite hobby. Lisbon, however, had been worried about Van Pelt ever since the incident with O'Laughlin. Her maternal instincts going into protective overdrive as a result of this would have made it difficult for her to refuse any request Van Pelt made of her, particularly if it were a personal request. Lisbon would feel that Van Pelt was emotionally vulnerable right now; if she could provide moral support to the younger agent by accompanying her to yoga, she would feel obligated to do so.

Yes, it was entirely possible that Lisbon had indeed gone to yoga when she left early. Still, there was something off about the whole theory. She hadn't cast one longing glance at the paperwork on her desk when she left. It was though she was actually *happy* to be going to yoga with Van Pelt. Maybe she had decided to take his advice to take more time for herself and make a real effort to spend her off hours relaxing.

He shifted on his couch, oddly discomfited by the idea of Lisbon consistently leaving the office at a reasonable hour instead of allowing him to convince her to join him for a cup of tea after she'd waded through her most recent pile of paperwork. And tonight, she hadn't even stopped to tease him for few minutes before she left. That was part of their routine—she wasn't going to change that for good, was she?

He realized his blood pressure had started to rise in response to the anxiety that this thought produced and he forced himself to calm down. Just because Lisbon may have gone to yoga for one night didn't mean she was going to suddenly stop being a workaholic and leave him without a late night tea companion.

Cho interrupted his musings by tossing a file on his chest. "Wake up," he said gruffly. "We've got a case."

Jane opened his eyes and stood up. "I wasn't asleep," he said with dignity, handing the file back to Cho. He never read files unless there was a damn good reason to. Cho ought to know that by now.

"Whatever. Boss is on her way back. Van Pelt is coming too."

Rigsby came over to stand next to them. "What's up?"

"Triple homicide in Folsom," Cho said curtly.

"Intriguing," Jane said.

"What do we have so far?" Rigsby asked.

Cho shook his head. "Let's wait til the boss gets here. I don't want to go through this twice."

Van Pelt arrived first. "Hey, guys," she said cheerfully.

"Hey," Rigsby said. "How was yoga?"

She beamed at him. "It was great. Thank you for asking." Her smile faded a bit. "Although it would have been better if I hadn't had to come back to an evening of murder afterwards."

"Where's Lisbon?" Jane asked her.

Van Pelt looked at him blankly. "I have no idea."

Jane frowned and would have inquired further, but Rigsby straightened up and hit Cho lightly on the arm, looking over Jane's shoulder. "Here she comes," he said, a note of awe in his voice.

Jane turned to see what he was staring at and his jaw nearly dropped. It didn't, of course, but the fact that it nearly did was troubling. Though given the sight before him, it would have been completely understandable if it had.

Lisbon was walking towards them, her hair long and loose around her shoulders. Jane's eyes raked over her. She was wearing a dress. And not just any dress. A dress that hugged her curves and ended in a swishy skirt that did amazing things for her legs. Namely, it allowed them to be seen. Jane could count the number of times he'd seen Lisbon in a skirt on one hand, and while he'd known she had fantastic legs, this dress was making him think fantastic was a truly inadequate way to describe them. This was no demure court skirt, this dress ended *above the knee.* Not far above the knee—this was Lisbon, after all—but nonetheless, he was afforded a tantalizing glimpse of thigh as she strode towards them. The strappy high heels adorning her feet made her legs look even longer than they actually were—how could someone so short have such long legs?—and added a slight sway to her hips, which, paired as it was with her usual authoritative gait, was nothing less than mesmerizing.

"Hey," she greeted them with a smile once she reached their little group. Jane was disturbed to find that he found the combination of the dress and the smile at the same time had him somewhat staggered. He never staggered. Never even lurched. But still…

"Wow," Rigsby said, echoing Jane's unconscious thoughts. He looked at Lisbon in appreciation.

"Hey," Cho said, in his usual expressionless manner. "You look good."

"You look amazing," Rigsby corrected him.

She blushed prettily. "Thanks, guys." She glanced at Jane, who was still gaping at her, and then quickly looked away.

"I told you that dress was perfect for you," Van Pelt said smugly. "You look totally hot."

Jane was still staring at Lisbon, and she must have felt his eyes on her, because she looked back at him with a questioning look in her eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but for once, he had no idea what he was going to say. He should probably make some offhand remark about her appearance that would make her feel confident about her wardrobe choice, but made him appear unaffected by Lisbon and her legs. Instead, he heard himself say accusingly, "You said you were going to yoga."

She blinked, nonplussed by his tone. "I did go to yoga."

He waved vaguely at her dress and heels. Lisbon had very attractive feet. How had he not known this about her? And they were practically bare. Good Lord, he was losing it. Obsessing over Lisbon's feet, of all things. Her nearly naked, downright sexy feet. He refocused. "You didn't wear that to yoga."

"No," she agreed. "I didn't."

"Aha!" Jane said, feeling victorious.

Van Pelt looked at him oddly. "Jane, the class we went to ended two hours ago."

Rigsby grinned at Lisbon. "So, hot date, huh?"

Lisbon rolled her eyes, but she smiled as she did it, so Jane could tell she wasn't annoyed. "Well, yeah, actually," she said, sounding a little embarrassed.

Jane relaxed. Of course. It was obvious. He should have seen it. If he hadn't been so distracted by the dress, and the legs, and the feet, he would have realized right away that this was clearly a date outfit. This explained that nagging feeling he'd had that yoga hadn't been a satisfactory explanation for her early departure from the CBI this evening.

This was good. He was glad Lisbon had gone on a date. He worried about her sometimes. A date was just the thing to shake up her personal life ever so slightly, which he firmly believed she needed. "Ah, a first date outfit," he said confidently, regaining his equilibrium now that the mystery had been solved. "Always good to make a strong first impression, Lisbon. Excellent choice."

"Fourth date," she corrected him.

"Excuse me?"

"This was the fourth date, not the first date," she informed him.

There went his equilibrium. The fourth date?

Lisbon didn't have fourth dates. She didn't even have second dates. Every so often, she had a first date. This left her either unusually relaxed the next day if it had gone well and she'd decided to sleep with the guy, or slightly depressed and in need of a little extra attention from her consultant in the form of him buying her a favorite dessert, or a late night chat over a cup of tea, or possibly both. Not that she'd ever say anything about it, of course; Jane could just tell these things.

But the point was, even if she slept with the guy, it never seemed to go beyond one night. He'd wondered about this occasionally, and had come to the conclusion that most men simply weren't up for the challenge of keeping up with Lisbon. And she didn't have the patience for anyone who failed to keep up. She might go for the short-term release of a physical encounter for one night, but she wasn't about to let anyone else slow her down in the long run. It was one of the qualities he found most appealing about her.

But she'd gone on four dates with this yokel, and he hadn't even noticed. He quickly ran through the past few weeks in his head to account for times these alleged dates may have taken place. Hm. Last week she'd worked late every night, but she'd left at eight on Thursday, and she'd seemed distracted when she said good-bye to him. At the time, he'd assumed she was preoccupied with the case they'd been investigating that week, but now her distracted exit had the ominous air of having been date number three.

The second date had probably been over the previous weekend, likely on a Saturday. He wouldn't necessarily have noticed any change in her behavior, if she had gone on a date on a Saturday. He rarely saw Lisbon on Saturdays, unless they had a case. Saturday was a highly overrated day of the week, in his opinion. It was really his least favorite day. At least on Sunday, Monday morning was just around the corner and he didn't have the whole dreaded weekend stretching out endlessly before him. Or, if he didn't feel like waiting until Monday, he could call Lisbon up and convince her to go to the park and eat ice cream with him. For some reason, this had become acceptable behavior to him, but Saturdays he still felt he should allow her to have to herself. He scowled. Maybe it was time to rethink that policy.

That left the first date. But try as he might, he couldn't figure out when this day of notoriety had occurred. At least, not without additional information.

"Who was the date with?" Rigsby asked, and Jane remembered the whole team was having a conversation about Lisbon's dating life separate from the one he was having with himself in his head.

"His name is Brian."

Brian. What a boring name. Jane smirked. "Cop or lawyer?"

Lisbon looked up at him. "Excuse me?"

"The only men you ever meet are cops and lawyers. Which is he?"

Lisbon stuck her chin out. "He's a vet."

What?

"How did you meet him?" Jane demanded. This was terrible. Lisbon loved animals. Tough, no nonsense Lisbon melted into a soft gooey puddle of affection in the presence of dogs, no matter how ugly and mangy the mutt might be. In fact, it could be argued that the uglier and mangier the mutt was, the more likely Lisbon was to like it. She would undoubtedly find a man who spent all his time ensuring the well-being of small, furry creatures very attractive.

She looked at him a little askance, but answered placidly enough. "We met at a softball game. We both play in a rec league that has games every Monday. He hit a long single to left field he was trying to stretch into a double. I tagged him out at second base and he asked me out for a drink after the game."

Ah, so that had been date number one. Jane's brain was too busy processing this information to come up with a snide remark about Lisbon never letting a man get past second base.

That was very clever of this Brian, asking Lisbon out after the game. She would have already been relaxed and comfortable, and would have felt no pressure to act or dress like anything other than her normal, tomboyish self. This softball incident also demonstrated that they shared common interests. The way to Lisbon's heart was definitely through the ability to recite sports statistics and demonstrate one's prowess on a field or rink of some kind. Well played, Brian the vet.

Lisbon cleared her throat. "Anyway, enough about my love life. Can someone please tell me about the murder we're supposed to be investigating?"

Cho handed her the folder he'd tried to give to Jane earlier. "We caught a triple. Local PD is securing the scene until we can get to Folsom. I told them not to touch anything until our forensics team gets there."

"Good." Lisbon leafed through the folder and Jane maneuvered himself closer to her so he could read over her shoulder. Like he said, he never read files unless there was a damn good reason to. Standing close to Lisbon was one of the very few reasons that qualified.

When he looked down, however, his eyes never quite made it to the folder. He sucked in a breath involuntarily, feeling as though he'd been sucker punched. The dress she was wearing was rather low cut, and the angle from which he was currently experiencing it gave him a rather dizzying view of the swell of her breasts. He was close enough to see the freckles on her chest. He was seized by the sudden thought that he'd like to spend some quality time counting them some day, or possibly mapping them like constellations.

This was unlike him. He was supposed to be on a single-minded mission for revenge—he wasn't supposed to allow himself to be distracted by the freckles on a woman's chest. Even if it was Lisbon.

He certainly shouldn't be thinking about what a useless profession veterinary medicine was, or how he'd always been suspicious of grown men who played softball in recreational leagues.

"Do we have IDs on any of the vics yet?" Lisbon asked.

Her dress was a very unusual color, Jane reflected. Somewhere between blue and purple. Periwinkle, he'd say.

"Not yet," Cho answered.

If someone had asked him thirty minutes ago, he would have said Lisbon couldn't even identify the color periwinkle, let alone own a dress in it. Maybe he didn't know Lisbon as well as he thought he did at all. There was a strange tightening in his chest at the thought.

"Shouldn't be too hard to run them through the facial recognition program once we get the crime scene photos," Van Pelt commented.

"Okay, we'll see what we've got once we get over there," Lisbon said. "What about the murder weapon?"

"There was a .32 left at the scene," Cho reported. "Not much doubt that it's the murder wea-"

"Lisbon," Jane interrupted, fingering the place where the periwinkle fabric met her shoulder. Her skin was even softer than the dress. "What color would you say this dress is?"

"What?" Lisbon looked down at herself distractedly. "I dunno. Purple?"

Jane sighed in relief. At least the pod people hadn't taken over Lisbon's body. She was still Lisbon. He'd been starting to worry.

Cho gave Jane a look that roughly translated in Cho-speak as, 'You're an idiot,' but he didn't say anything aloud.

Lisbon closed the file and handed it back to Cho. "All right. I've got to change out of this ridiculous dress, and then we can go, okay? We leave in ten minutes." With that, she turned on her heel and marched into her office.

The team dispersed, leaving Jane alone gaping after her, considering if there was the remotest possibility he could get away with trying to peek through the blinds without the rest of the team realizing.

Cho shot him a withering look. "Don't even think about it, man."

Jane straightened and smoothed his vest down over his chest. He gave Cho his most charming smile. "I haven't the least idea of what you're referring to, Agent Cho."

Cho rolled his eyes and Jane wandered off to the kitchen, hoping he would have enough time for a cup of tea to calm himself down before they left. After experiencing the unpleasant revelation that Lisbon had suddenly started having a life without him noticing and the decidedly pleasant proximity to her periwinkle dress in such close succession to one another, he was in need of something soothing.


	2. Chapter 2

It turned out to be the quickest crime solving field trip on record. Jane had it pegged as a murder suicide from the moment he saw the bodies, but before he'd even had a chance to come up with a good scheme to present this information to the team in an entertaining way, Lisbon sighed heavily and said, "Seriously, a murder-suicide? Why were we even called in on this?"

Cho checked his notes. "The neighbor who called in the shots is a state's senator's daughter. She was pretty freaked out and daddy wanted to make sure his little girl hadn't moved into an apartment building full of hoodlums."

Jane looked up from the bodies on the floor. "No hoodlums. Just betrayal and a jealous lover."

They stayed to wrap things up at the scene, but they were back in Sacramento before midnight. The next day, Lisbon let everyone come in late because of the late night they'd had.

Jane strolled in around ten, bearing pastries. He hadn't slept well the night before. He'd been plagued with thoughts about Lisbon and her dress, fourth dates, and whether he'd ever met anyone named Brian that wasn't a complete waste of a human being.

He offered Rigsby first crack at the pastries, but shielded the bear claw from the groping tentacles of the Thing That Could Have Eaten Schenectady, If Given Half a Chance. The bear claw was for Lisbon.

He was able to deliver the bear claw safely, along with a fresh cup of coffee. Vile stuff. Lisbon accepted it with a smile of appreciation, however, and inhaled deeply with a contented look on her face. "Thanks, Jane," she said, taking a long sip from the steaming cup.

"You're welcome." He could tell she expected him to drop off the coffee and baked goods and leave, but instead, he ambled over to her couch. He settled himself comfortably on the white cushions and gave her a wide smile.

Lisbon raised her eyebrows. "Something I can help you with?"

"No. I just thought we should have a little chat."

"What about?"

"It occurs to me that I failed to tell you how lovely you looked in that dress last night."

Her eyes narrowed. "Thanks," she said suspiciously.

"It really was an appalling oversight on my part," he mused.

"Don't worry about it," she said, still suspicious.

He grinned at her. "So, Brian, huh?"

"Oh, God, here we go," she groaned.

"I've never heard of anyone having a secret lover named Brian before," he mused. "Raphael, maybe. Or Dirk. But Brian? It lacks a certain mystique, if you want my opinion."

"I never asked your opinion, and he's not my secret lover," she said, exasperated.

"If he's not a secret, why didn't you tell me about him?" Jane asked reasonably.

She gestured towards him. "*This* is why. I can't go out on one date without you making fun of me for days afterwards. I just thought I'd spare myself the humiliation, for once." She hesitated. "Besides, I… I thought you knew."

"How would I know?"

"I don't know. You always seem to know these things. God, you sent me catalogues of ten thousand dollar engagement rings for a week after I went on one date with Mashburn, and I never said a word about going out with him."

She hadn't had to. He could tell the minute he'd seen her the next day that she'd come to the crime scene straight from Walter Mashburn's bed. The usual tension in her shoulders was gone, and she'd met him with an easy smile and a contented look in her even greener than normal eyes. He remembered being slightly off-balance by how beautiful she'd looked and feeling it like a slug to the gut when he realized that Mashburn must have been the one to put that look on her face. Naturally, he'd had to vent some of his feelings by teasing her a bit. And continuing until he provoked her into snapping at him that Mashburn had gone to Europe and she wasn't planning to see him again, so would he cut it out with the predictions of their impending nuptials? He'd felt much better after that, and had been able to stop sending her the catalogues.

"So you assumed I was already aware of Brian's presence in your life?"

"Yeah. I thought it was odd that you hadn't said anything about it, but I thought maybe you were just going to leave it alone for once, and I figured, why look a gift horse in the mouth? If you weren't going to bring it up, I certainly wasn't going to open the topic for your ceaseless mocking."

"I see."

She fidgeted. "What does it matter, anyway? We've been out on a few dates. Big deal."

"No matter," Jane said with a carelessness he didn't quite feel. "Just curious. So, what's he like?"

"Brian? He's nice. He's a good person. You know, stable."

Jane made a face. "Sounds exciting."

"Oh, hush. Lots of women find that quality appealing, you know. Stability, I mean."

Since it wasn't a quality anyone would ever accuse him of having, he didn't really know, but he supposed he could imagine. "Hm."

She sighed. "Look, I'm going to regret telling you this, but you're going to find out anyway, so I might as well let you know… he's planning to stop by today."

Jane perked up. "Really?" This was excellent news. He'd be able to assess this Brian fellow in person and figure out exactly why he was all wrong for Lisbon.

"Yeah, he's coming to pick me up for lunch, so I guess you'll probably meet him, if you're around."

Oh, he'd definitely be around. Like he was going to pass up an opportunity like this.

Lisbon must have read some of what he was thinking on his face, because she rolled her eyes. "Look, just go easy on him, okay, Jane?"

He smiled at her. "Why, whatever do you mean, Lisbon?"

She scowled at him. "I mean, don't do a complete character analysis of him based on the color of his socks or something. If there's something wrong with him, I'd rather just find out for myself, all right?"

Well, where was the fun in that? "I'll play nice," he promised.

"Good. Like I said, he's a nice guy. He doesn't deserve to be raked over the coals for your amusement."

Did she really think him so small?

Okay, he was that small. But that didn't mean he wasn't capable of being a mature adult. Or at least pretending to be one for a limited period of time.

xxx

Jane hung around the kitchenette for an absurdly long period of time before Brian came to pick up Lisbon. Tactically, it was the best place for spying on Lisbon's office without being noticed. Also, he was going to need to affect a dramatic entrance at the most opportune moment, and he needed to be able to see exactly what was transpiring in her office in order to determine exactly when that moment was to arise.

He drank three cups of tea standing up over the sink and constructed the most elaborate sandwich known to man before Brian finally showed up at twelve thirty. Really, it had been very inconsiderate of Lisbon not to let him know what time her date was for. He could have avoided making a spectacle of himself if she'd just told him what time Brian was stopping by. Cho had definitely given him an odd look on that third cup of tea.

His heart sank when he saw the man who absolutely had to be Brian. He was tall- closer to Rigsby's height than his own, with dark hair, brown eyes, and laugh lines that made his eyes crinkle attractively when he saw Lisbon and smiled. He was good looking and athletic, but not flashy. He looked perfectly ordinary, truth be told. Jane detested him on sight. "Hey, you," the interloper greeted Lisbon as he caught her just outside of her office.

She smiled back at him. Jane watched her, dismayed. It was a real smile, one of those precious objects that he was willing to work long and hard for, and here she was doling one out to Brian like it was nothing special. "Hey, yourself."

He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the lips. "It's good to see you."

She returned the kiss and then her smile widened. "It's good to see you, too."

Jane nearly fell over. Lisbon was letting a man kiss her at the office? Like she didn't care if anyone saw or what they might say if they did?

"Shall we go?" Brian the useless asked.

"Yeah. Let me grab my bag."

They went into her office. Jane stared at the office windows for a moment, unable to see in because the blinds were still drawn. What were they doing in there? Kissing more, out of sight of prying eyes? He considered the position of the vet. If he, Jane, were dating Lisbon, and he hadn't seen her all morning, he'd want more than a friendly peck hello. Lisbon wasn't the biggest fan of public displays of affection, so he might well engineer a private moment so he could have a long taste of her soft mouth, feel the smooth column of her throat under his lips, and bury his nose in her sweet smelling hair.

Jane put down his tea cup with a clatter and barged into the office. "Lisbon, I—"

Brian was standing by the visitor's chair and Lisbon was pulling her purse out of the bottom drawer of her desk. Their lips, Jane noted with some relief, were nowhere near each other. "Oh, excuse me. I hope I'm not interrupting anything," he said with a smirk.

Lisbon raised her eyebrows. "Did you need something, Jane?"

Jane ignored her. "Ah, you must be Brian. I'm Patrick Jane," he said, extending his hand to the other man.

The vet gave him an open, easy smile and shook his hand. He had a firm, confident grip, but wasn't one of those guys who tried to crush your fingers in a misplaced show of dominance. "Hello, Patrick. Pleased to meet you. I've heard a lot about you."

"Oh, really? Lisbon talks about me on her dates?" Jane said, preening. Poor Brian.

Brian laughed. "She's got some great stories. Did she really punch you in the nose after you tricked a high security facility into going into lock down by convincing everyone they were going to die from an outbreak of a deadly virus?"

"Yes, she did," Jane acknowledged, feeling a bit put out. It had been a good scheme, but Brian seemed more impressed by Lisbon punching him than by the brilliance of the scheme that preceded it.

Brian grinned. "I bet she packs a mean punch, doesn't she?"

"That she does," Jane acknowledged ruefully.

"I love that I'm dating a bad ass cop," Brian said, putting his arm around Lisbon's waist and looking at her appreciatively. "It will be nice having someone to protect me from any thugs we might meet on the mean streets of Sacramento. What do you say, Teresa? Will you defend my honor with your mean right hook?"

"If your honor is threatened at Vappiano's Italian Café, I will certainly do my best to defend it," Lisbon said dryly.

Jane frowned. Lisbon was *his* bad ass cop. She was supposed to protect *him* from the thugs of Sacramento. And the thugs in the rest of California, as well. Also, he didn't like the way Brian said her name. Teresa. It sounded frightfully intimate.

Lisbon, paying no attention to him whatsoever—which didn't bother him in the least, of course, as there were no thugs threatening his person at the moment-nudged Brian gently with her elbow. "Come on, you can meet the rest of the guys."

She introduced her new beau to the rest of the team, Jane trailing after them with a bemused expression on his normally impassive face. Grace, always the friendliest to outsiders, beamed at Brian when he mentioned that Lisbon had told him that she was amazing at research. Rigsby commented, "Nice guy," when they left because Brian had asked him about Benjamin and suffered through the subsequent phone slide show of about a hundred pictures of the kid without complaining. Even Cho warmed to him, as much as he ever did, because Brian had struck up a conversation with him about Russian literature.

Naturally, Jane was suspicious. A guy that perfect didn't come along every day. And the last time one had, he had shot Lisbon and broken Grace's heart. It was therefore perfectly reasonable that he felt suspicious of the man. Especially as it seemed the vet wasn't content to infiltrate Lisbon's life; he was weaving his sinister web throughout the team, as well, trying to gather them into his clutches.

He needed to do some research to find out if this Brian was all that he pretended. The thing was, research wasn't exactly his strong suit. If he could have tricked the truth out of the man in a friendly card game, he would have been all set, but as it was, he was reduced to asking the team to help him.

This was a resounding disaster. Rigsby had snorted in disbelief and said sarcastically, "Right. I'd love to get my ass fired for helping you spy on the boss's boyfriend. Not happening." Cho just shook his head and said, "Get it together, man. This is starting to get pathetic." He wasn't entirely sure what Cho meant by this remark, but he had some suspicions. These suspicions were confirmed when Grace flatly refused to help him, telling him that trying to get her to pull Brian's financial history was hardly the most healthy way of dealing with his jealousy. "Why don't you just tell her how you feel?" she said, exasperated.

He didn't bother dignifying this with a response. They didn't know what they were talking about. Of course he wasn't jealous of Brian the baseball playing vet. What did he have that Jane didn't? Other than an honest face, an astonishing lack of emotional baggage, and a lunch date with Teresa Lisbon, that is.

He was forced to conduct his research on his own. He sat down at the desk across from Grace's and poked at the computer keys with his index fingers in distaste. He never had gotten the hang of these infernal machines. He'd made a grave miscalculation with Van Pelt. If only he'd thought of a more convincing cover story, he could be benefiting from her wizard like skills with CBI mainframes right now. As it was, he was reduced to hunting and pecking on the keyboard on his own. Still, all was not lost. Any idiot could use Google, after all.

Two hours later, he logged off with a scowl. Brian Morrison, 36, was a native of St. Louis, Missouri, an avid Cardinals fan, and the third of four children to parents Daisy and Michael, a librarian and garage mechanic, respectively. He had put himself through school with a baseball scholarship and had gone on to become a respected vet who had written several research articles that had been published in scholarly journals of veterinary medicine. He volunteered for Habitat for Humanity, and had been engaged four years earlier, but his fiancée had left him for another man a week before the wedding. He also, quite literally, had been a Boy Scout.

Well, what did the internet know? Just because he appeared damn near perfect on paper, didn't mean that he wasn't in league with Red John. Just because Jane couldn't think of how Brian could have been recruited by Red John when he'd been living out of the country for the past three years and had only moved to California a couple of months ago, didn't mean there wasn't a link between the two. For all he knew, the alleged charity work Brian had been doing helping southeast Asian villagers learn how to better care for the livestock which comprised their livelihood was a ruse for some illegal activity, possibly smuggling, that had somehow thrown him in Red John's path.

Lisbon was back from her lunch. He wandered into her office, feeling dejected, and gestured to her couch. "May I?"

"Sure," she said, without looking up. "Just don't snore, okay? I want to get this done before my afternoon budget meeting."

He lay down on her couch, somewhat put out. Lisbon should know by now that he didn't snore. He watched her surreptitiously, but he needn't have bothered with subtlety. She was so absorbed in her task that she didn't take any note of him. That was one of the things he liked about her. Her absolute focus. He found it fascinating how she could lose herself so completely in what she was doing that she could be completely oblivious to what was going on around her. This facet of her personality made an intriguing contrast to the alert team leader who catalogued every detail of her surroundings when her team was about to make a bust, organizing everyone to the best tactical advantage and never losing sight of the big picture.

He watched her type up her report, cataloguing his own list of detailed observations, and what he saw made his stomach sink.

She'd had a lovely lunch. She'd been gone almost an hour and a half, which meant she'd been having such a good time that she'd allowed Brian to convince her not to rush back to the office. She so rarely took time off that for once, she permitted herself the luxury of lingering over a nice meal with pleasant company. She was absorbed in her task, yes, but the set of her shoulders was relaxed, and her face was smooth and free of that adorable line that formed between her eyes when she was worried or upset about something.

Brian had taken her to a nice place. Nothing too fancy, but something rather more than a cut above a chain restaurant, that's for sure. The sort of place with nice linen and a menu that changed daily. Jane continued to watch her. She'd eaten a house salad as an appetizer, and probably some kind of pasta for the main course. Perhaps pasta carbonara- that was one of her favorites. And—he stared at her as he realized—she'd gotten dessert. Dark chocolate torte, if he wasn't mistaken. He stared at her, appalled. She liked this guy enough to let him persuade her, tough, no-nonsense Agent Lisbon, to indulge in something rich and decadent, in the middle of the day?

He frowned. That was his role in her life. No one else was supposed to be able to spoil her, to anticipate her secret pleasures in life and go about the business of ensuring that she indulged them every so often. Brian already had baseball and chocolate covered, what was next? Tickets to a Spice Girls concert? Ice cream and a movie marathon of classic films while curled up on her couch? His stomach lurched, hating the image of Brian in Lisbon's home, let alone sitting next to her eating popcorn with his arm around her.

Lisbon looked up. "You okay?"

"Of course," he answered quickly. "Why do you ask?"

"I don't know, you look… broody."

He raised his eyebrows. "Broody, Lisbon?"

"You know what I mean. Like you're brooding about something."

"I don't brood."

She snorted. "Oh, please. You're a world champion brooder."

"I'm not brooding, Lisbon."

She looked at him closely. "Are you sure? You seem upset about something."

"I'm not upset."

Clearly unconvinced, she eyed him suspiciously. "All right. But if you want to talk about anything, I'm here, okay?"

He nodded, and made a show of closing his eyes as though he was planning to go to sleep.

He could hear her hesitation, and then he heard the pages of her report turn as she resumed her work, unwilling to push him further.

He cracked an eyelid open. That line between her eyebrows had reappeared. Now she was the one brooding. About him and what she considered to be his fragile mental state, no doubt. Somehow, he didn't find the line quite as adorable when he knew he was the cause of it.

"Lisbon?" he said softly.

She looked back at him. "Yeah?"

"Thanks."

She nodded in turn, and went back to her report once more.

He smiled to himself. The line between her eyes was gone, and she was relaxed and immersed in her work once again.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Thank you everyone, for all the lovely reviews for this story. They really do make me want to update faster! Short chapter today, but I'll post again soon.

xxx

Clearly, the research hadn't panned out the way he'd hoped it would.

Not that he was hoping that Lisbon's new boyfriend was an agent of Red John's, of course. The mere thought of one of Red John's creatures laying a hand on Lisbon sent a chill down his spine. Still, was it so much to hope for some evidence of some fundamental moral defect in the other man's character that would render him undesirable to a woman whose own character was as forthright and upstanding as Lisbon's?

It had been a mistake to rely on the patchwork results the internet could provide to sketch the man's character. If he had any chance of forming a complete picture of the kind of man Brian the vet really was, he would need to play to his strengths. It would be risky, of course. If Lisbon ever found out, he would be in serious danger of being permanently separated from his limbs. But there was nothing for it. If he wanted to find out more about Vet Charming, he was going to need to observe him personally.

The first stop was the Monday night baseball game. He knew the name of Lisbon's team because it was printed on the back of the jersey she changed into before leaving the office on Monday nights. He was able to find the schedule for the league fairly easily online, and deduced Brian's team name from comparing the schedule to the date of the infamous first date. From there, it was simply a matter of checking the site for the next game to be played by the Whitehead Bank Wasps.

Unfortunately, he had to go incognito for this excursion. Nothing drastic like a fake beard, or anything like that, but he was forced to wear jeans and a polo shirt so he wouldn't stand out too much in the crowd. And a ball cap. He had very distinctive hair, after all, and it wouldn't do to be noticed.

He sat high in the bleachers, slouching with his hands in his jacket pockets, trying not to attract much attention. It wasn't hard. Most of the people there knew each other and the players on the team, and weren't inclined to reach out to solitary strangers.

Brian was a competent player, not outstanding but consistent, and not afraid to take risks. He moved with an easy grace on the field, which took Jane a moment to realize was borne of a pure love of the game. He was happy out there, fielding grounders and line drives at third base. He shouted encouragement to his teammates when they were at bat, and swore under his breath when the other team succeeded in striking someone out on his own team. When he made a good play or got a hit, he grinned shyly at his teammates' praise, clearly pleased, but humble.

He had a kind of quiet leadership on the team. He wasn't in an obvious role of power like the captain, for example, but Jane noticed that when he spoke, his teammates listened. He probably exerted more influence over other people than he knew, Jane realized, because he was well-liked but not pushy, confident, but not arrogant. He was good-natured, joking around with his teammates in the dugout and on the field. The sort of guy that didn't stand out, but got along with everyone he met because he was kind and easy-going.

Jane left after the third inning, ignoring the pit in his stomach. He'd seen all he needed to.

xx

The next stage was a bit trickier. Lisbon would definitely kill him if she caught him.

Jane steeled his resolve, telling himself that this was for the greater good. What Lisbon didn't know, wouldn't hurt her. Or him, in this case.

It was Saturday morning, and he was following Brian and Lisbon on what he was assuming was approximately their seventh date. Not that he was counting, or anything.

He kept his distance, knowing it was more than his life was worth to risk being seen by Teresa Lisbon this morning. She'd tear him limb from limb if she knew he was—well, stalking was such an ugly word, was it really appropriate here?—her and her boyfriend as they strolled down the sidewalk at the farmers market together, hand in hand.

He wondered vaguely what it would be like to hold hands with Lisbon. She had such small hands, soft but strong, with the kind of tiny fingers that would have been deft at detailed craftsmanship in another trade, another life. He'd held her hand once or twice over the years, once when he danced with her at that high school reunion, and another time when he was pretending to have a psychic revelation in front of a kidnapper and his family. The latter was in the guise of adding dramatic effect to his psychic vision, though, grasping at her for a fleeting moment for strength when he was pretending to be at the height of vulnerability during a psychic episode. The dance, though, that had been nice. He remembered the feeling of Lisbon's small form molding against his, the scent of her hair, and the feeling of her hand in his. That stolen moment was hardly the same, though, as walking brazenly down the street with her hand in his. Apparently, only Brian was lucky enough to be granted that sign of favor.

He was grinding his teeth again. He really needed to stop doing that. It demonstrated an intolerable lack of control.

He watched them pick out tomatoes together, and wondered bleakly whether they would be cooking dinner together that night. Lisbon didn't care much for cooking, he knew. After having the primary responsibility of feeding her family thrust upon her for years in her youth, he imagined it was some kind of unconscious rebellion that led her to feed herself mostly out of takeout containers in her adulthood. But he was sure she was competent enough, if she felt like putting forward the effort. Would Brian be sufficient incentive to inspire her to put forth the effort?

Surely not. Besides, surely Brian wasn't so foolish as to want her to cook. He, Jane, would have wanted to let her indulge in her unconscious rebellion, would have wanted to cook for her, to come up with complex and decadent dishes to surprise her. His reward would have been in her delight in sampling the results of his efforts, the pleasure of taking care of her in this small way.

They moved on from the tomatoes and sampled the cool apple cider set out in tiny cups on top of an oak barrel. Jane licked his lips, feeling parched. He'd always wondered if Lisbon would taste, as she smelled, like apples and cinnamon.

The worst was yet to come. Brian nudged Lisbon in the shoulder and directed her attention to something Jane couldn't see from his vantage point. Her face lit up and they walked further down the block and out of Jane's sight.

He moved closer, and his heart clenched when he saw them once again. They'd stopped at a pen set up on the sidewalk by an animal rescue organization, and Lisbon was kneeling on the ground, surrounded by puppies, her face alight with pleasure.

Damn Brian the vet. He must have known these puppies were here, and lured an unsuspecting Lisbon to them, where she would be unable to defend herself from the adorableness around her. Her love of animals, combined with her compulsive need to take care of every living creature that crossed her sphere of influence would kickstart her capacity for love and affection into overdrive. No doubt Brian assumed he'd be reaping the benefits of being in the crossfire. Damn Brian the vet. By incorporating puppies into the day, he'd pretty much taken Lisbon on the perfect date.

Lisbon picked up one of the puppies, and held it up so she could look it in the eyes. She smiled, her cheek dimpling and her eyes sparkling.

A queer feeling filled Jane's stomach and wrapped snakelike tendrils around his heart which constricted, causing his heart to contract painfully. She should always look like that.

Well. Perhaps not always. It would be unnatural to be that happy all the time, after all. Besides, he would miss her other expressions if she were this happy all the time. He was rather fond of the irritated look she gave him whenever he did something particularly outlandish, for example. He also liked her pretty frown of concentration when she was puzzling out connections on a case. Her concerned face, when she was worried about him, was another expression he'd grown rather attached to over the years. Lord help him, he'd miss her glare, if he were never to see it again. But certainly she should look like that more often. She should look happy. She should *be* happy.

Why had he never thought of this before? Oh, sure, he'd make her an origami frog as a conciliatory gesture to ease her wrath when he'd annoyed her, bring her a pony for her birthday to surprise her, or startle a smile out of her with a bright flower at a crime scene, but these were mere token gestures, afterthoughts to appease her or a chance to show off his own cleverness. Granted, making her smile was one of his chief pleasures in life, but he'd never exactly devoted his full attention to the matter, had he?

The truth was, he'd secretly reveled in the fact that Lisbon, like him, didn't seem to be destined for a life like everyone else had-a normal, happy life, with mortgages and long-term relationships and babies. He took comfort in the fact that she was a driven workaholic with her own dark past because that meant she stayed at the CBI at all hours of the night with him, allowing him to convince her to go for a late night pot of tea. He didn't want her to leave their private club of unhappiness, because then he would be alone. He'd kept her there with him, selfishly tethering her to his side with dark confidences and an appeal to her need to care for that which was broken. He, perhaps better than anyone, knew how much Lisbon needed something to take care of to make her feel complete, and in a strange way he'd played into that for his own unconscious purposes. To continue to be broken was a sure way of keeping her attentions on him. But he'd never done quite as good a job of taking care of her right back.

It was true, what everyone always said about him. He really was a bastard.

And he didn't deserve her.


	4. Chapter 4

Jane stopped his spying excursions after that. They were too depressing. Instead, he turned his mind to a new puzzle, one of the few in living memory that had well and truly stumped him.

How could he make Lisbon happy? Would the best thing to do be to give Brian the vet free rein to charm her with puppies and baseball? To let her settle down with that beanpole without putting up a fight? Or was it possible that he himself might be able to achieve this elusive goal? After all, Brian wasn't nearly as perceptive or cunning as he was. Would Brian be able to guess when she needed a pint of Cherry Garcia to take the edge off her day? Would he think to trick her into doing something frivolous for her own good?

"Jane, you coming?"

He snapped out of his reverie and looked up to see the object of his thoughts looking at him with a quizzical look on her face. The rest of the team was up ahead, making the gradual ascent to the cliff's edge where their most recent victim had been found. It was a lovely spot, a wildflower strewn haven overlooking the ocean. Too bad the body was kind of spoiling the view.

He smiled at her. "I'm right behind you." And he followed her to the top of the hill.

He did a cursory examination of the body, but his mind wasn't in it. He looked out over the ocean and breathed deeply. It was a beautiful day, so brilliantly sunny that the water sparkled like diamonds on the horizon.

The rest of the team was still up ahead, having found some clue or another about fifteen yards away they were intent on pursuing, but Lisbon was still next to him, frowning at the body. She really was breathtaking.

He watched her hair flutter lightly in the soft spring breeze, unable to take his eyes off the tiniest glints of red flashing in her dark hair in the sunlight. Had her hair always been this mesmerizing? He'd always liked it, of course. It was undeniably lovely, and he'd thought to himself on more than one occasion that the way her dark hair framed her face and set off her ivory skin was particularly striking, but he couldn't recall having had this experience of being unable to direct his gaze anywhere but at her long, shining hair.

He wasn't aware of reaching out to touch it, but suddenly he found himself with his arm extended, stroking the soft, silky strands without having had any conscious intention of deciding to do so.

Lisbon jerked away and turned to look at him with an incredulous expression. "What the hell are you doing?" she demanded.

"Nothing," he lied.

"Why were you feeling my hair?"

"I thought there was a spider in it," he said glibly.

Her expression changed instantly. "Ugh!" She flipped her head over and started violently scrubbing her fingers through her hair. "Is it out?" she said frantically.

"Yeah, I think you got it," he said mildly.

She straightened, her hair now thoroughly disheveled. "Oh, good."

He couldn't help it. He laughed at her. She looked so cute, all tousled, with that slight pout on her face. Like she'd just gotten out of bed. The thought was decidedly… alluring. "Come here. You're looking a bit mussed."

He didn't wait for her to respond, but stepped towards her and started combing her hair with his fingers. So soft.

His fingers slowed their path, tracing each strand to its end. He brought his hand back to her scalp and began again. And… again.

Lisbon's hand drifted up to catch his wrist, but she didn't push him away. Her small, delicate fingers tightened on his arm. Her eyes were wide and questioning. "Jane?" she said uncertainly.

He looked at her, his hands now cradling her head, fingers buried deep in the long dark tresses. Their eyes met and held, and he saw her breath catch in her throat. His eyes dropped to her mouth and—

"Uh… everything okay, Boss?" Rigsby asked, looking sheepish about interrupting them.

Jane had never liked Rigsby. He'd interrupted some of his best moments with Lisbon. Loathsome moment interrupter.

To her credit, Lisbon didn't flinch. She looked over at Rigsby like it was perfectly normal for her consultant to be holding her head like he was about to kiss her over the dead body of a middle aged accountant. "Everything's fine," she told him. "Jane was helping me get something out of my hair."

"Okay," Rigsby said, looking unconvinced. "We found something up here you might want to take a look at."

"Let's go," she said, and they left Jane standing there with the dead man at his feet, feeling shocked and bereft for reasons that had nothing to do with the loss of human life that had brought them there in the first place.

xx

Lisbon avoided him for the next several days, for which he could hardly blame her. He would have avoided him, too, if he could have. He was becoming skittish at his own thoughts, distracted and restless. He hadn't come up with a good plot in days. Gone was the comforting obsession with torturing and killing Red John. Instead, his thoughts were filled with much more dangerous stuff: daydreams of Lisbon. Lisbon, smiling and happy, standing next to him and holding his hand. His hands buried in her hair, and her head tilting towards him as their mouths moved closer to each other—

This pleasant image was disrupted by a deeply unwelcome interruption in the form of Brian. "Hello, Patrick," he said cheerfully. "Is Teresa in?"

Jane kept his face smooth, restraining himself from scowling with considerable effort, and considered his position. The truth was, Lisbon was in, but if he told Brian that, he'd go into see her and he, Jane, would have no excuse to insert himself into their interaction. "Dunno," he said, deciding to remain in the comfortable terrain of falsehood. "Let's check."

He got up from the couch and walked to Lisbon's office, Brian following behind him.

He opened the door, and Lisbon jumped in her chair, knocking the cup of pencils on her desk over in a startled movement. "Geez, Jane, are you ever going to learn to knock?" she said irritably.

"Sorry," he said unrepentantly. "Brian's here to see you."

A look he couldn't read passed over her face. "Oh. Well—let him in."

Jane stepped aside to let Brian enter the room.

The other man greeted Lisbon cheerfully and dropped a kiss on her cheek, looking disgustingly happy to see her.

She smiled back at him, but Jane noticed that the smile was rather strained. He felt cheered by this, until he realized that the strain was probably due to his own presence. He had, after all, almost kissed her at a crime scene. Not that Lisbon would admit to herself that that was what had happened. She probably just felt vaguely guilty for reasons she couldn't quite pinpoint, almost as though she'd cheated on Brian by allowing Jane to touch her hair and look at her in such an intimate way over a corpse laying amongst the wildflowers.

For once in his life, Jane felt rather ashamed. Lisbon wasn't a cheater. She was the most honorable person he knew. And for all his flaws, he wasn't a cheater, either, and he'd never ask her to become one for him.

The problem was, yet again, the presence of Brian. Everything had been fine before he'd come along. He and Lisbon had been perfectly content maintaining their tenuous balance of friendship and denial until he'd come along, jostling them into an upset of the status quo. Jane had been fine ignoring his growing feelings for Lisbon until someone new came into the picture and threatened to take the lion's share of her attention away from him. He'd been fine with observing her in the appreciative but detached manner of an admirer of an abstract ideal of beauty, until Brian had come along. Ever since that damn periwinkle dress had come onto the scene, he'd been forced to face the reality—the intensity—of his desire for her as a real flesh and blood woman. And he was beginning to realize he was a man who had been unconsciously denying his longing for her for far longer than he cared to admit.

"So, what's new with you, Patrick?" Brian asked, interrupting his reverie.

The question brought him up short. It was a mundane attempt at small talk, hardly an out of the ordinary question to pose to a casual acquaintance, but Jane realized that it was rare for him to be on the receiving end of this type of question. The people he came across in the course of their investigations didn't know him well enough to ask such a question. The team, on the other hand, knew him too well to bother. The truth was nothing was new with Jane. He was still on his decade old mission for revenge—the one which he never seemed to get any closer to achieving; same old, same old.

Well, he amended to himself, except for his increasing preoccupation with Lisbon. Even this wasn't exactly new, if he were to be completely honest with himself; it had just been thrown into relief by his jealousy of Brian himself. Jealousy was certainly a new experience for him, but he was hardly going to share this information with Brian.

"I'm thinking of getting a dog," he blurted out.

Lisbon gave an unflattering snort. "Yeah, right."

He looked at her, insulted. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You can barely take care of yourself. How are you going to take care of another living creature?"

"I manage to take care of myself just fine. You're the one who forgets to eat half the time. I could get a dog, if I wanted one."

She tutted in disbelief. "What are you going to do, tie him to the radiator while you scribble away in your attic all night?"

He ignored her. "A dog would be good companionship."

"Since when do you care about companionship?" Lisbon demanded. "You're never happier than when you're left alone to obsess about Red John or come up with new schemes to cause as much trouble as possible."

He looked at Brian's hand, which was resting lightly on the back of her delicate neck during this exchange, and resisted the urge to set his tie on fire. "It's something I've come to value more recently," he said sourly.

"I think getting a dog is a great idea," Brian said. "Did you know that people with pets tend to be healthier than people without pets?"

"Yes, I could take it on walks," Jane agreed. "Very healthy." A dog would be good protection, too, which he would probably need if Lisbon was going to be busy protecting Brian from thugs instead of him.

Lisbon stared at him. "You're really thinking about getting a dog?" she said uncertainly. There was a trace of vulnerability in her voice for which he couldn't quite account.

He wasn't really thinking about getting a dog. Dogs were noisy, messy, and a responsibility which he absolutely did not want. He didn't even know why he'd said it. He certainly didn't know why Lisbon should have attached to the idea to the extent that he could tell that to find out this was a joke (or a desperate bid to distract her attention away from Brian and onto himself), would be a blow of disappointment to her. As he looked into Lisbon's hopeful face, he found that having disappointed her on so many occasions in the past, he simply couldn't bear the notion of disappointing her again.

"Yes," he said firmly. "I am."

She smiled at him, one of those rare and brilliant smiles that lit up the room, one of those ones that meant she was really pleased about something. Jane half wished to look at Brian to see how he felt about his girlfriend bestowing such an amazing smile on another man, but the sight of Lisbon smiling at him like that was so bewitching, he couldn't look away from her.

Great. Now he was going to have to get a dog.


	5. Chapter 5

Thoroughly shaken by the events in Lisbon's office, Jane went to the animal shelter the next day. He wasn't committing himself to anything, he told himself. He'd told Lisbon he was *thinking* about getting a dog. He didn't have to make any decisions right now. This was purely an exploratory mission.

The woman at the front counter showed him back to the rows of cages, and he suppressed a shudder. Lisbon was right—it was a rather grim place.

He focused on the task at hand. He saw several dogs which were ugly and mangy enough to melt Lisbon's heart in a moment, but decided he had to draw the line somewhere. He'd always known he'd have to forego the pet shop in favor of the local animal rescue shelter or risk Lisbon's wrath. Lisbon had strong feelings about animal rights and thought it the moral responsibility of any prospective pet owner to save an animal in need of a home rather than waste money tracing the beast's pedigree. So he'd go to the shelter, but that was the furthest concession he was willing to make. Lisbon's idea of canine perfection may have been the most homely, flea-bitten mutt in the place, but if he had to get a dog, he was going to get a cute one, dammit.

After a few minutes perusing the rows of cages, he finally found a likely looking candidate.

"What kind of dog is that?" he asked the woman helping him, pointing to the cage that had caught his eye.

The woman peered inside it. "That one's part beagle, part border collie, and part mystery," she informed him.

The dog was small, but not too small, and mostly white and brown, with some black patches. He would do nicely.

"I'll take him," Jane announced.

The woman eyed his immaculate suit doubtfully. "Are you sure? He's a bit of a handful."

What was with people doubting his ability to take care of a dog? He could manipulate a room full of powerful business men into exposing their darkest secrets without breaking a sweat. He was perfectly capable of managing one smallish to medium sized creature that hadn't even evolved to the point of having opposable thumbs.

"I'm sure," he said firmly.

The woman shrugged her indifference. "Suit yourself."

Clearly, she didn't know what she was talking about. How much trouble could one little dog be?

xxx

"Lisbon, I need your help," he said without preamble when she picked up her phone.

He heard her sigh on the other end of the line. "It's Sunday, Jane. I'm not supposed to have to deal with your messes until Monday morning. Can't it wait?"

"No. Please, Lisbon. I really need your help."

"With what?" she asked suspiciously.

"I'll explain when you get here."

She sighed again. "Fine. I'll be right over."

"Great. I'll send you the address."

"The address?" Lisbon said blankly. Where the hell was he? She'd assumed he was at home. He hung up before she could ask, however, and a moment later, her phone buzzed with a text message with an unfamiliar address. Resigned, she grabbed her keys from the front table and headed out to bail her consultant out of God knows what trouble yet again.

Twenty minutes later, Lisbon pulled up in front of a modest but charming Victorian house in Midtown. She double checked the address and then climbed the front steps with a feeling of great trepidation.

Jane answered her knock immediately. He was wearing his usual uniform of three-piece suit, minus the jacket. His sleeves were rolled up and he wasn't wearing any shoes.

"Thank God you're here," he greeted her. "Come in."

She allowed him to usher her in with his hand at the small of her back. "Jane, what's going on?"

Jane scowled. "That beast won't give me my shoe back," he said darkly, pointing into the next room.

Lisbon followed the direction of his finger with her gaze and her eyes came to rest on a half-grown puppy lying on the living room floor, contentedly chewing on the remains of what Lisbon recognized as one of Jane's familiar scuffed brown shoes.

She turned back to him, incredulous. "This is why you called me here? Because you can't get your shoe back from a puppy?"

"It's not my proudest moment, I admit," he said grudgingly.

Lisbon couldn't help it. She started to laugh. "Wait til the guys hear about this. The great Patrick Jane, brought down by an infant canine."

"Never mind that now," he said impatiently. "Can you help me? That's my only pair of shoes."

She didn't bother to give him a response. She went into the next room and approached the hellhound with absolute assurance. "Hey, there, little guy," she crooned. "Did you take the bad man's shoe?"

The dog looked up from his task of getting as much drool as possible to pool in Jane's shoe and looked at Lisbon with interest.

Lisbon dropped to her knees and looked into the pup's brown eyes. "I know how you feel," she confided to him. "He probably deserved it."

"Hey!" Jane said, insulted.

"Shut up, Jane," she said, without taking her eyes from the dog.

He shut up.

She reached out and scratched the dog gently behind the ear. The shoe completely forgotten now, he leaned into her touch, an expression of canine ecstasy clear on his face.

When she withdrew her hand, he got up and followed it, placing his front paws in her lap and looking up at her hopefully, eager for more of her attentions.

Lisbon laughed and obliged him, letting him climb onto her lap and stroking his head gently.

Jane took advantage of this turn of events to dart around her and snatch back his mangled shoe. The shoe recovered, he looked back at Lisbon. She was cuddling the puppy close to her body and smiling.

Great. Now he was jealous of his own dog.

"He's such a sweetheart," Lisbon said, looking up at him. "Do you know his name?"

"His name is Toby," Jane said sourly. It had seemed like a good name at the time. Now it seemed something along the lines of Judas or Lucifer would have been more appropriate.

"What a darling," Lisbon said, laughing as Toby tried to lick her face.

Jane scowled. "He's a pest."

She grinned at him. "Good thing for you, that happens to be my specialty," she said, giving him a pointed look.

He ignored her implication. "Yes, well, thank you."

"You're welcome." She looked around at the comfortably furnished living room. "Nice place. Whose is it, anyway? And why did you take off your shoes when you broke in?"

"I didn't break in," he said. "This is my house."

She looked at him, puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what I said. It's my house."

She shook her head. "I don't understand."

"I bought and paid for it, therefore it is my house. The deed is in my name, and everything."

She stared at him. "You bought a house?"

"Yes."

"I picked you up at that roach motel you call home just last week. When the hell did you buy a house?" she demanded.

"Yesterday."

"You can't just buy a house in one day," she contradicted him.

"True," he agreed. "Technically, we're still in the closing process, but I asked if I could move in right away, and they said yes."

She looked around again. "But … it's furnished."

He shrugged. "Well, I had to pay an arm and a leg to get it all delivered so quickly, but I knew what I wanted, so what was the point of waiting?"

She shook her head. "You just decided to move, just like that?"

"Pretty much."

"What made you decide to buy a house, all of a sudden?"

"Well, it turns out the hotel doesn't allow pets."

Lisbon looked down at the puppy in her arms as though it were an alien creature. "This is your dog, too?"

"Well, yes. Whose did you think it was?"

"I thought it belonged to the people whose house you broke into."

"Nope. The little monster is all mine," Jane said ruefully.

"I don't understand," she said again.

"What's not to understand? I got a pet and bought a house. Pretty standard fare, when you think about it."

"It's a lot of change, all at once. Where is all this coming from? I didn't even know you were thinking about getting a house."

"I wasn't. I was thinking about getting a dog. Which I did tell you about," he reminded her.

"Only because you told Brian about it," she said grumpily.

"Well, he asked," Jane pointed out. When her frown only deepened at this response, he hastened to add, "Besides, the whole idea only occurred to me very recently."

"Still," she said, not appeased. "We're supposed to be friends. You should have told me."

Jane couldn't very well admit that he'd only followed through on the admittedly ill-conceived idea of getting a dog to please her, and the whole thing had just kind of snowballed from there, so he did something which he normally avoided doing at all costs: he apologized. "I'm sorry," he said contritely. "I didn't mean to keep you in the dark, Lisbon. It truly did happen all of a sudden. I went to the animal shelter on Friday after work to check the place out and ended up bringing this dog home without ever having really planned to adopt one right at that moment. Then when I got back to the hotel and they told me they didn't allow pets, getting a house seemed like the obvious solution. So I found one I liked and put an offer on it. I told them I would pay cash if they would let me move in the same day, and they were amenable to that idea, so all I had to do was get the furniture delivered and I was all set."

"Busy weekend," Lisbon muttered.

"Yes," he agreed. "Rather busier than I'm accustomed to, to be honest. I was just going to lay down on my new couch and rest for awhile when this little hellhound got hold of my shoe and started to try to destroy it." He glared at the puppy. "No matter what I tried, he wouldn't let it go. That's when I called you."

Lisbon cradled the puppy to her protectively. "Don't yell at Toby," she chided him. "It's not his fault he was adopted by a crazy man with only one pair of shoes."

He ignored this. "So, now do you believe that I wasn't keeping any grand home purchasing schemes from you?"

"I definitely believe the part about you deciding to do something without considering any of the consequences," she said dryly.

"You're the one who is always telling me to stop being so single-minded. I would have thought you'd be pleased I'm getting more stability in my life."

"Hmph," she grunted.

He grinned. "Would it make you feel better if I gave you the ten cent tour?"

Her lower lip jutted out slightly as though to indicate she wouldn't be mollified so easily. She really was adorable. "Maybe."

But Jane wasn't fooled. She was obviously dying to look around. He leaned down and picked the puppy up from her lap and set him on the floor beside her. Then he held out a hand to help her up.

To his mild surprise and immense pleasure, she accepted his proffered hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet.

Being Patrick Jane and unwilling to settle for an inch when there was potential for a mile to be had, he took advantage of the unexpected opportunity to prolong the contact. "Come on," he said, keeping firm hold on her hand and tugging her along as he led her to the next room. He showed her the kitchen, which was light and airy and had recently been remodeled to include the most up to date appliances (not that he expected Lisbon to care about that- she hated to cook), the cozy downstairs den outfitted with wall to wall bookshelves, and a comfortable dining room. She smiled when he showed her the spacious backyard and Toby immediately took off to chase a squirrel, but as they progressed through the house, Jane noticed her growing quieter and quieter. Then when they finally entered the master bedroom, she went very still. Toby, who had been trotting along at Lisbon's heels throughout the tour, gave a short, sharp bark which seemed to bring her back to herself. She looked down at her hand joined with Jane's and appeared startled to realize they'd been holding hands this whole time. She quickly extricated her hand from his, leaving Jane feeling more bereft than he was prepared to admit.

"So, what do you think?" Jane asked, pretending not to notice that she'd literally dropped him like a hot potato.

"It's nice," she said unconvincingly. She crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive posture and frowned at the massive antique queen-sized bed.

"Wow, what a ringing endorsement," Jane said dryly.

"It *is* nice," she insisted. But rather than looking impressed, she looked uneasy.

"Then what is it?" he asked, a bite of impatience in his voice. He'd been so sure she would like it. He'd planned for it, in fact. He felt let down, disappointed. What was the point of the whole thing, if she didn't like it? Had he just spent over half a million dollars in one day for nothing? Not that he cared about the money, but surely she should find such a grand gesture at least a little impressive.

She glanced at the framed black and white photograph of the Chicago skyline on the wall to her left and shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know," she said finally. "I can't put my finger on it. There's just something… weird about this place."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know," she said again. "It's just not… you, somehow."

He relaxed. He'd deduced the source of her discomfort. He was impressed. She was right, of course. The place wasn't completely him. He'd say it was about fifty percent him- the other fifty percent was all her. Things he'd chosen because he'd thought she would like them. He hadn't expected her to pick up on it so quickly, even if she hadn't really realized what she was picking up on, which she could hardly be expected to be able to do. After all, home decorating wasn't exactly Lisbon's forte. The woman still had paintings from the previous tenants and unpacked boxes in the living room of an apartment she'd moved to over six years ago, for God's sake. If someone had asked her what kind of décor she preferred, she probably wouldn't have been able to tell them. She had no clue that she liked soft shades of green as a main color scheme with bits of bright blue as accents, that she preferred oak to teak in wooden furniture, or that she secretly loved old-fashioned, romantic pieces more than anything else. He, on the other hand, had years of observations of Lisbon's unconscious reactions to the homes of hundreds of witnesses and suspects upon which to draw when considering what would make her most comfortable in his house.

He frowned. Perhaps he had gone a bit overboard. Instead of being soothed and relaxed by an interior specifically designed to make her feel comfortable and at ease, she seemed to be unconsciously reacting to the unexpected intimacy of having her secret desires displayed on the walls of his house.

Of course, it wouldn't do to alert her to that fact. "Whatever do you mean, Lisbon?" he said, affecting confusion. "Of course it's me. I bought it, didn't I? Who else would it be?"

Rather than looking reassured by this, however, her frown deepened. "I don't know."

Feeling rather alarmed about what she would do to him if she did in fact manage to intuit the significance of his decorating choices, he said hastily, "Well, let's not dwell on it. Now, what do you say? Now that you've seen the place, can I offer you a glass of cold lemonade in the kitchen?"

She agreed, looking relieved at the excuse to get out of the bedroom, but when he gave her the lemonade, she drained the glass in two gulps and announced she had to leave.

"But you just got here," Jane protested, not troubling to conceal his disappointment.

She glanced at the expensive coffee maker on the kitchen counter and shifted uneasily. "I really need to go."

And with a last affectionate good-bye to Toby, she bolted like Bertram was after her to give a press conference.

Toby, under the impression that this was some kind of wonderful new game with his new favorite person, trotted over to the door after her and sat down in front of it expectantly, tail wagging in eager anticipation of the moment she would reappear to surprise him.

It was pretty pathetic how long he waited for her to come back, Jane reflected. Not quite as pathetic as the moment when he finally realized she wasn't going to, however. He let out a low whine and pawed at the front door in a vain attempt to get out. Then when he realized this wasn't working, either, he set to barking furiously for a half hour straight. Finally, he gave up and lay down with his head resting on his paws, gazing dejectedly at the still closed door.

Hours later, Jane was in bed when Toby came padding into the bedroom, looking forlorn. He made his way to the side of the bed and looked at Jane imploringly.

Jane, who knew what that look meant, said firmly, "No. Absolutely not. You are not sleeping in the bed. The bed is for humans only."

He shut his eyes, determined to ignore the beseeching look being directed at him from the side of the bed.

He cracked one eye open. The puppy was still there, looking at him hopefully. He glared at him. "These sheets are Egyptian cotton. I'm not having you get puppy smell and dog hair all over them."

Toby cocked his head to the side and continued to look hopeful.

Jane rolled over to his other side so he wouldn't have to look at those eyes anymore. He stared at the picture of the Chicago skyline that had spooked Lisbon into flight earlier. He bet Lisbon would have let the damn dog into bed in a second. He knew she'd had dogs in the past—all her charges had probably had bed privileges, Egyptian cotton or no.

As tough as she appeared to be, she undoubtedly had a soft spot for her favorites. Jane was sure Toby, like himself, would have secured a place on that list within moments of first meeting, however undeserved. He pictured her laughing as the dog leapt up eagerly to be beside her, moving over so he could curl up beside her, and stroking his head affectionately.

He turned back over. "Fine," he told Toby. "You can sleep in the bed."

The puppy didn't wait to be asked twice. He jumped up beside Jane, his back legs scrabbling awkwardly for purchase when he didn't quite make it all the way onto the bed on the first try. Jane gave him a boost and Toby flopped down next to him. "This is just for tonight, you know," Jane warned him. The poor creature had had a rough evening, after all. All that hopeless pining really took it out of a being. "Don't get used to it. And no slobbering." Dog hair was one thing, puppy drool was entirely another. Toby responded to this stricture by lolling over and plopping his head on Jane's stomach.

Jane imagined Lisbon smiling at the picture they made, two pests in repose. Idly, he pictured her curling up beside him and resting her head on his shoulder so she could easily reach over and pat the dog.

Really, Jane thought with a yawn, absently scratching the dog behind the ears, he wasn't such a bad little beast after all.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: I am wretchedly behind on review replies, but I want to thank everyone who has reviewed/ favorited/ followed this story. I truly do appreciate all your kind feedback. Someone asked how many chapters there will be- one more after this one, plus an epilogue.

xxx

The next day was a court day for Lisbon. Typically, Jane didn't care much for court days, as they generally meant Lisbon was out of the office most of the day and consequently he had to find other ways to amuse himself. Sometimes, though, she wore a skirt to work on court days, so he was able to reap some small compensation for her absence by having the opportunity to admire her legs. He wasn't so fortunate today, though. She was wearing one of her most severe suits and she had her hair wound in an unforgiving knot at the back of her head. Generally, he preferred her hair loose, but on this occasion he found himself rather fixated on her exposed neck, wondering distractedly what it would be like to taste it.

She was in the bullpen with her bag slung over one shoulder, signaling the fact that she was on her way out, but had paused to issue some last minute orders, looking harried. She bore up well, ever the consummate professional, but the truth was, Lisbon hated court days. She preferred being out in the field, in the middle of the action.

"Rigsby, don't forget to complete that mandatory online training while I'm gone—you're three weeks late on it as it is and if we don't hit one hundred percent as a team by the end of the month, the brass is going to have my ass. Van Pelt, I want you to keep working Grayson's financials for the Adams case—maybe something will pop. Cho, you're in charge until I get back." She took a breath. "Jane, try not to cause too much mayhem until I'm available for damage control."

"Not to worry, Lisbon," Jane said cheerfully. "My opportunities for causing mayhem will be fairly limited today."

"They will?" she asked suspiciously.

"Yes. I, too, will be out of the office much of the afternoon, so I will have to squeeze all my mayhem inducing activity into a much narrower time frame than usual."

"Where are you going?" she demanded.

"Nowhere of consequence. Just running some errands."

Her eyebrows narrowed. "What kind of errands?" Untrusting woman. Just because he'd inadvertently provoked a delinquent into starting a fire at the Capitol building the last time he'd spent an afternoon out of the office unsupervised, she seemed convinced he was using the word errand as a euphemism for causing trouble for the CBI.

"Nothing bad, I assure you," he told her. "I just need to pick up a few things for Toby."

"Oh," she said, clearly taken aback by his response. "Well—all right, then." She hesitated. "Say hi to Toby for me." And with that, she was gone.

Jane watched her go and then turned to find three pairs of eyes staring at him curiously. "What?" he said.

It was Cho who gave voice to the question evident in all of their faces. "Who the hell is Toby?"

Jane sat down composedly on his couch. "Toby," he informed them, "is my dog."

They stared at him.

"You have a dog?" Van Pelt repeated in disbelief.

"Indeed, I do."

"Since when?" Rigsby said, brow furrowed.

"Friday."

Cho, of course, seemed least fazed by this news. "Lisbon already met the mutt?"

"Yes, she came over to my house yesterday to help me rescue my shoe," Jane said, looking down at his shoes with a frown. The left one was definitely looking a little worse for wear.

Van Pelt blinked. "You have a house?"

"Yes."

She exchanged glances with Rigsby. "I thought you lived at that hotel."

"I did."

"But now you have a house," she confirmed.

"Yes."

"When did you buy a house?"

He thought back. "Saturday."

She looked taken aback. "Oh. Well—good for you."

"Yeah, congratulations, man," Rigsby said, sounding bemused. He hesitated. "How come you didn't tell anyone you were planning to buy a house?"

"It was sort of a last minute decision," Jane explained.

Cho rolled his eyes. Apparently losing interest in the conversation, he picked up his book and opened it to the place he had marked.

Rigsby looked at Jane, utterly befuddled. "What do you mean, it was a last minute decision?"

"I mean, I didn't really plan it. I just decided rather suddenly to buy a house. There wasn't much time to tell anyone."

Rigsby nodded as though this made sense, though his features telegraphed a different story. "Right. But you told the boss, right?"

Jane raised one eyebrow. "Obviously, I did, or she wouldn't have come over yesterday."

"But you told her you were thinking about it, though, didn't you?" Rigsby persisted.

"Well, no," Jane admitted. "Like I said, I just decided very recently."

Rigsby's frown deepened, but he didn't ask any further questions.

"What made you decide to buy a house all of a sudden?" Grace put in. "I thought you liked staying at that hotel."

"Oh, you know… just time for a change, that's all."

"But why now? You've been at that place for years. Why decide to make such a big change in such a hurry?"

"Maybe I just decided it was time to settle down."

"There had to have been a reason. It just doesn't make sense, otherwise," Van Pelt said.

Cho didn't look up from his book. "Sure it does."

All three of them looked at him in surprise.

"What do you mean?" Rigsby asked.

Cho turned a page in his book. "He bought the house and got the dog to impress the boss."

Van Pelt and Rigsby looked at Jane in disbelief. "Seriously?"

"Don't be ridiculous," Jane said, affecting an indifference he didn't feel. Things were at a sorry pass if he was so obvious that members of the team were picking up on such things. At least it was Cho. If Rigsby independently started to notice his recent preoccupation with their team leader, he was in real trouble. "Why would I do that?"

Cho turned another page. "Cause you're jealous of Lisbon's boyfriend and you're trying to prove to her that you can be the kind of stable, dependable guy he is if that's what she wants."

"Don't be absurd. I'm not jealous of Lisbon's boyfriend," Jane lied. "She's at perfect liberty to see whomever she likes."

Cho finally looked up. "Fifty bucks says you crack within two weeks."

Jane arched an elegant brow. "Crack? And do what, exactly?"

Cho shrugged. "Sabotage the vet and confess your undying love for Lisbon would be my guess. At least one of the two, anyway."

Jane smiled coolly. "Do you really think I have so little self control? You must really enjoy being parted from your money, Agent Cho."

Cho smirked. "We'll see about that."

Jane agreed to the bet, but had the unfamiliar and unpleasant feeling that he was being had.

xx

That afternoon, he took Toby to the vet.

It was very nice of Brian to agree to see him without an appointment, Jane reflected when he arrived at the vet's office. It was obviously a busy practice, with cats and dogs and turtles and rabbits all about. Brian could have asked him to make an appointment and come another day, but he'd been perfectly pleasant and said he'd see if he could switch some things around so Jane could have Toby attended to right away.

It wasn't like Toby needed anything attended to immediately, really, unless there was a cure for a penchant for leather shoes, but it was decent of Brian to go out of his way to help him. Jane scowled, displeased at being faced with yet another reminder of what a nice guy Brian was.

"Patrick." The paragon greeted him with a sickeningly genuine and friendly smile, ushering him into the examination room. "How are you?"

"Fine," Jane said, feeling disconcerted. He'd really gotten out of the habit of small talk. He had the capacity, of course—such skills were critical to the ability to run a successful con, after all- but of late, he'd practiced more of a 'provoke first and ask questions later' style. "Yourself?"

"I'm doing well, thanks. So, this must be Toby," he said, bending down to greet the puppy with a smile.

Toby, traitorous creature that he was, wagged his tail happily when Brian patted him on the head and submitted to having his face licked with a laugh. Jane frowned. It was clear that Brian was one of those people, like Lisbon, who all dogs adored instantly upon first meeting.

"Let's take a look, shall we?" Brian said cheerfully. He scooped up Toby and deposited him on the examination table. Toby looked perplexed, but not unwilling to go along with this strange game.

Jane watched Brian as he ran sure, gentle fingers over Toby's small body, listened to his low, soothing voice as he calmed the puppy down for his shots. Toby whimpered slightly when the shots were administered, but Brian's comforting hand at his neck and murmurs of sympathy seemed to have the desired effect and the puppy endured the discomfort with much better grace than Jane would have expected possible.

"Thanks again for seeing him on such short notice," Jane heard himself say. "That was really nice of you."

"No problem," Brian said. "Happy to do it."

Jane watched him. "You're a good man," he observed.

Brian looked slightly taken aback. "Uh… thanks."

"Lisbon deserves that," Jane said. "She's a good person. She ought to have someone that good in her life, too." The words were bitter on his tongue, but they were also true, in a way, so he added, "I'm glad she has you in her life."

"I'm glad to have her in my life, too," Brian said. "She's amazing."

Jane smiled slightly. "Yes, she is."

Brian looked at him measuringly. "You guys are friends, right?"

This seemed to Jane a grossly inadequate way of describing his relationship with Lisbon, but as he couldn't think of a word to indicate that Lisbon wasn't just his friend, she inspired him to try to be a better man and gave him hope when all seemed lost, he was forced to accept this description without modification. "Yes."

Brian hesitated. "She's not an easy person to get close to, is she?"

Jane laughed despite himself. That prickly exterior of hers, which he found so charming, was certainly no mean obstacle to getting to know the warm, caring woman behind it. "No, she certainly isn't," he agreed.

"Any advice?"

"Advice?" Jane repeated. "On how to get close to Lisbon?"

"Well—yeah." Brian looked sheepish. "I mean—she's great- beautiful, fun—"

Jane nodded, finding it strange, for some reason, that those were the first two adjectives that came to Brian's mind when describing her. Beautiful. Fun. He knew she was beautiful, of course, but it was one of those things he didn't quite allow himself to think about too consciously most of the time. Admittedly, he'd been having more and more trouble with that of late, what with the periwinkle dress and the sudden need to get fake spiders out of her hair at crime scenes. And she was fun. Not that many people knew that about her. She was so tough and no-nonsense at work that most people who met her casually might suspect she was always cold and humorless, when nothing could be further from the truth. She had a wonderful, dry humor that he loved, and he knew she had a sense of adventure that she rarely let anyone see. His heart ached slightly, thinking about her letting Brian see that part of her so easily.

"—but I can see she's so much more than that," Brian continued. "Only she won't let me see those other parts of her. She retreats into herself, sometimes, and goes somewhere I can't follow. I don't know how to get her to trust me, to let me in all the way, to see who she really is."

Trick her, provoke her, refuse to wait for permission before insinuating yourself into her life. Catalogue her every reaction, no matter how minute, to gain perspective on the lens through which Lisbon sees the world. Let that knowledge change your own perceptions, so you, too, start to believe more firmly in things like hope and justice and loyalty. Stand by her side for years and watch for any sign that she might need you even a fraction as much as you need her.

He had a feeling Brian wouldn't find this to be the most useful advice, however, so he said, "What's your biggest problem?"

Brian blinked. "My biggest problem?"

Jane nodded. "Yes. What is the thing that weighs on you in the middle of the night, your biggest source of self-doubt? Don't tell me what it is, just hold it firmly in your mind. Do you have it?"

"Uh… I guess," Brian said, looking confused.

"There you go. That's your in."

"My 'in?'" Brian repeated.

"Yes, that's how you get Lisbon to trust you."

"I don't understand."

Well, he may be a nice guy, but he wasn't exactly the brightest bulb in the house, was he? "Lisbon likes to take care of things," Jane explained. "She's a compulsive fixer. So, give her something to fix, and she's happy."

When Brian still looked confused, he persisted. "She needs to be needed. If you're the thing that is broken, she'll be so busy trying to take care of you that she'll forget to keep her walls up all the time. She'll start to trust you despite herself and then when she needs you, half the battle is won. Not the whole thing of course—you'll still need to bully her into accepting help from you, should the need arise, but at least you'll have a foot in the door."

"Sounds like she needs someone to take care of her," Brian commented.

"Yes," Jane agreed. "Very true. She needs someone to spoil her a bit."

"Spoil her?" Brian echoed.

"You know, buy her the special blend mocha latte on Tuesdays, bring her fresh strawberries from your favorite fruit stand, make sure she doesn't skip meals, take her dancing..." Get her a pony on her birthday. Buy her a new couch when you notice the old one has springs that would poke her in the back if she ever sat on it.

"Dancing, huh?" Brian said with a frown. "I didn't know she liked stuff like that. I figured she was more into sports."

"Oh, don't be fooled by that tomboy act," Jane said, alarmed. "Don't get me wrong, she is a tomboy, but just because she's comfortable being one of the guys doesn't mean she doesn't have a girly side." He thought of the feeling of her soft curves against him on that occasion when he'd persuaded her to dance with him at that high school reunion, the easy way she'd moved against him. "She's really delightfully feminine under that tough exterior."

Brian's frown deepened. "I'm not much of a dancer."

"Well," Jane said, snapping the leash on Toby's collar as he prepared to leave. "What better reason to learn?"

xxx

A few days later, Lisbon was getting ready to leave early again. Jane glanced at the clock. 6pm. Rigsby had left, but Van Pelt was still there, as was Cho, his latest novel propped open on his desk.

Jane wandered in to Lisbon's office with his cup of tea so he'd have one last chance to talk to her before she left for the day. He watched her gather her things together.

"Baseball practice?" he inquired with a fond smile. Few things could drive Lisbon out of the office before the rest of the team had left. Baseball was one of the few things that qualified. "Maybe I could come watch one of these days."

"Uh, no, actually," she replied, snapping the latch on her bag closed and slinging it over her shoulder. "Brian asked me to take dance lessons with him, so I've got to run home and change before I meet him."

Jane froze, feeling the smile on his face go rather fixed. "Oh?"

"Yeah. It's kind of weird, actually. I wouldn't have pegged him for the type of guy to voluntarily sign up for dance lessons, but he seemed kind of insistent about it, so I figured what the hell, I'll go to a few lessons with him."

Jane tried not to grimace at the mental image of that lanky beanpole clumsily trying to lead Lisbon around the dance floor. He'd never been so dismayed to learn someone had followed his advice. He breathed deeply through his nose to calm himself. Brian was trying—he had to give him credit for that. He scowled. That oaf had better not step on her feet. She'd be nice about it if he did, of course, but he ought to be aware of what precious cargo he held in his arms and treat her accordingly.

"Are you all right?" Lisbon asked. "You look kind of… tense," she said, with a glance down at his hands.

He followed her gaze and saw his own fingers in a white-knuckled grip on his favorite teacup and saucer. He forced them to relax and gave her a dazzling smile to distract her. "I'm perfectly all right, Teresa. Don't worry about me. Go, enjoy your date."

She frowned, and he realized that slipping and calling her by her first name had made her even more wary of his unusual behavior than she had been before. As for telling her not to worry, he may as well tell the sun not to shine as tell Lisbon not to worry over one of her self-designated charges. Anyone she'd gathered under her protective wing was subject to ceaseless fretting and mothering if she suspected they had so much as a toothache, let alone some kind of personal crisis. Realizing he had to act fast to prevent her from offering to stay with him and deal with a potentially hours long interrogation about whether anything about the Red John case had set him off recently, he shooed her out of the office before her suspicions had a chance to take firm root. He practically pushed her out the door, insisting he didn't want her to be late, and closed the door behind her.

He collapsed on her couch, his heart beating rather faster than he was accustomed to. That had been a close call. He burrowed into the sweet-smelling cushions, trying to take some comfort in the familiar scent that clung to them, but for the first time in living memory, the beguiling mix of apples and cinnamon failed to soothe him. Feeling thoroughly depressed, he reluctantly acknowledged to himself he'd much rather have had the real thing, instead.


	7. Chapter 7

Jane struggled mightily with this dilemma over the course of the next week. He wanted what was best for Lisbon. He truly did. And he was forced to accept the conclusion that Brian fit the bill for that role much better than he did. After all, Brian was a stable, animal loving, baseball fan willing to take dance lessons against his better judgment. Brian was *nice.* And what was he, Jane? At worst, a revenge obsessed former charlatan. At best, a charming bastard.

Despite having come to the entirely rational conclusion that the best thing to do would be to encourage Lisbon's little romance with the vet to the best of his ability and relegate himself to the role of eccentric uncle to their athletically gifted and beautiful future offspring, he found that such a purely unselfish act was a bit beyond him. He couldn't stop plotting ways to sabotage poor Brian and whisk Lisbon away from him. It would be so easy. He could manipulate a strange woman into showing up at Brian's apartment while Lisbon was there and pay her to act like Brian had been leading her on. Lisbon, of course, would never tolerate any sign of infidelity. Upon reflection, however, he decided casting Brian as a cheater wasn't the most plausible scenario. He was so obviously not the cheating kind. He moved on. One of his more recent schemes involved tricking Brian onto a yacht and leaving him out at sea without a crew or a navigation system. This was by far the cleanest break imaginable. He wouldn't have to do anything to Lisbon—Brian would just disappear. So tidy.

Unaccustomed to having to wage war against his better self—normally his better self wasn't that great and needed no corralling to allow his worse self to have its own way—he was growing rather withdrawn. The team noticed and had been giving him a wide berth. Whether this was because they didn't want to be contaminated by his gloomy mood or whether they were just afraid that his downcast frame of mind was likely to precipitate a string of catastrophic events of even greater proportion than usual, he wasn't sure.

He'd taken to spending more and more time on the couch in Lisbon's office, both to get away from them and also in an effort to train himself to make do with the synthetic comfort of being near objects she touched, of being close to her by proxy by inhabiting her space when she wasn't there.

He shuffled into her office on Monday night, thinking to lay down on her couch to wrestle further with the question of whether he should put about a rumor that Brian was a terrible vet who'd had an awfully high number of pets under his charge disappear under mysterious circumstances, but when he entered the room, he found his intended destination was already occupied.

Lisbon was sitting there, staring straight ahead of her with her elbows on her knees and her hands knotted together in an attitude normally adopted only when she was brooding about a particularly elusive killer.

"Hello," he said in surprise. He gestured to the seat next to her. "May I?"

She gestured her acquiescence impatiently, but didn't look at him.

He sat down next to her and watched her, disquieted by her obvious air of mental distress. He racked his brain, trying to guess at its cause. "No baseball tonight?" he said lightly, trying to draw her out. Baseball was typically a safe topic.

"No," she said shortly. "We have a bye this week."

He hesitated. "I'm surprised to see you here," he admitted. "I thought you'd already left."

"I didn't."

"I see," Jane said with a frown. "No date with Brian then? Are you still keeping up with the dance lessons?"

"Brian and I broke up," she said curtly.

Jane's heart leapt and started to do a Conga dance inside his chest. "Oh?" he said, as neutrally as possible. "When was that?"

"This afternoon."

"Shame," he said. It was a good thing he didn't believe in God, or he'd be worried about being struck down from on high for being so blatantly disingenuous. "So- why did you kick Brian to the curb?"

"I didn't kick him to the curb, I—" She stopped, frowning. "How do you know he didn't break up with me?"

He waved dismissively. "Don't be absurd. Why would he break up with you?"

"Because I'm a cold, emotionally unavailable workaholic?"

He snorted. "Oh, please. Men don't break up with smart, beautiful women just because they work unconventional hours. Besides, no one in their right mind would ever describe you as cold. You're about as cold as the inside of an active volcano. So what gives? Why did you break up with him?"

Lisbon sighed. "I don't know. There was just something missing."

"What kind of thing?"

"I don't know," she said again. "Something that's supposed to be there."

"Ah," Jane said knowledgeably. "You mean the spark."

She turned her head to look at him. "The spark?"

"Yes, you know, the chemistry, the shiver up your spine when he touches you—the spark."

"Yes, I think that's exactly what the problem was," Lisbon said thoughtfully. "Perfectly nice guy, attractive, but no spark." She sighed. "Maybe it's me. I lack spark."

"Trust me, Lisbon, you have spark in spades," Jane said, thinking of the contact high he'd gotten just from touching her hair under the guise of freeing it from imaginary arachnids. "You just need to find the right… ignition."

"I'm serious, Jane."

"Hey," he said, vaguely alarmed by how upset she seemed. "So it didn't work out with you and Brian. People break up. Happens all the time. What's the big deal?"

She buried her head in her hands. "There must be something wrong with me. Any sane woman would be falling all over herself to have a guy like Brian in her life."

"Don't be ridiculous. There's nothing wrong with you. Brian wasn't the one, that's all."

"Oh, yeah?" she challenged him. "He was damn near perfect! If he wasn't the one, then who the hell is?"

He opened his mouth to reply, but he had no response for her.

"That's what I thought," she said bitterly. "God, I am an idiot."

"You're not an idiot," he said automatically. Brian was the idiot—if Lisbon had ever tried to break up with him, he wouldn't have taken it lying down. He would have tricked her into giving him a second chance—or two hundredth—whatever it took to stay with her.

"I really, really am."

She was so cute when she pouted. He felt a thrill of victory that Brian would no longer have the privilege of admiring that delicious lower lip when she scowled. "Don't be so gloomy, Lisbon," he replied, having more difficulty than ever in containing his glee. "Plenty of fish in the sea, and all that. Better luck next time."

"God, you're an ass," she said, disgusted. "Can't you even have the decency to *pretend* not to be happy about this?"

"I'm sorry," he said, but he suspected his effort at sincerity may have been undermined by the smile threatening to split his face in two.

She glared at him. "I absolutely loathe you right now, you know that?"

He grinned. "Hey, you're the romantically incompetent one—no need to take it out on me."

She snorted. "Right. Like I'm the only one around here incapable of having a normal relationship."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She turned towards him and assessed him critically. "You really want me to answer that?"

He affected an indifference he didn't feel. "Certainly."

"God, Jane, you're like the poster boy for unhealthy relationships."

"I have healthy relationships," he said, stung.

"With who?" she said.

He set his jaw. "I had perfectly healthy relationships with my wife and daughter."

"Yes," Lisbon said quietly. "You did. But what about since then, Jane? You have this consuming obsession with a killer, you don't trust anybody, and you have no close relationships."

"I trust you," he said, not for the first time.

"Yeah," she said, resigned. "I know."

Well, that was progress, anyway. She didn't have to sound so unhappy about it, though. "I'm close to you," he persisted.

Her eyes skated away from his. "Yes."

"So there you have it," he said. "Evidence of my ability to have a healthy relationship, right there."

She looked at him incredulously. "You're not seriously using our relationship as an example of healthy emotional behavior, are you?"

"Certainly," he said, taken aback. "Why not? We're good friends, we can count on one another when the going gets tough—it's kind of ideal, when you think about it."

"Are you crazy?" she said flatly. "We're about as unhealthy as it gets."

"I take exception to that statement, Lisbon. Many people would kill to have what we have. Why would you suggest otherwise?"

"Are you freaking kidding me? After all the times you've lied to me, tricked me—"

"Oh, don't trot out that old line about the tricks and lies—that's just the surface stuff. Underneath, we're all right, really."

"No, we're not."

"What's so wrong with us, then?"

"We're a co-dependent mess!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Lisbon." He could see how one might describe them as co-dependent—they had come to rely on each other in small domestic ways over the years, but they were hardly a mess. He brought her bear claws and coffee when she skipped breakfast, and she provided him solace and encouragement whenever he started to sink into a downward spiral of depression when one of his Red John schemes failed. What wasn't healthy about that?

"It's the truth. Neither of us has had a real relationship in forever because we have each other as stand ins for the real thing. We're each other's emotional proxies. I can't remember the last time I went out on more than one date with a guy before Brian, and you don't even try to date at all."

This conversation was giving him a headache. "Why would I want to date?" He didn't need to date. He had Lisbon.

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Love and affection? Companionship? Sex?"

She had him there, he thought, thinking again about the periwinkle dress and the freckles. And her neck. And the way she smelled now, sitting next to him.

"But you don't care about that at all," she continued, oblivious to his train of thought. "Look at you. You're thrilled to death that things didn't work with me and Brian, because that means you have your old playmate all back to yourself."

"I like to think I'm not so selfish that I would be happy about something that caused you unhappiness, Lisbon, no matter its effect on me," he said. He would like to think that, but all the evidence pointed to the fact that he was exactly that selfish. "I have nothing against Brian. He's a stand up fellow—bad luck for him that he didn't succeed in capturing your fancy."

"Please. Don't act like you weren't jealous of him."

"I wasn't jealous," he lied.

"Yes, you were. You were acting like a kid with an old toy—you don't really want it until someone tries to take it away from you, and then you refuse to give it up."

He disliked the metaphor. Of course he wanted it—her. "What if I was acting like a kid who didn't want to give up his favorite toy—the only toy that really mattered to him?"

"Whatever, Jane," she said wearily. "Call it what you want. Just—next time, could you go a little easier on the emotional manipulation?"

His heart thudded loudly in his chest. "What do you mean?"

"I mean… everything. The way you were looking at me when I came back to the office in that dress, that whole thing with my hair…"

He avoided her gaze. "It was a really big spider, Lisbon."

"Look, it wasn't a big deal. Or, it didn't have to be, anyway. I could have handled it, if it was just that. But you couldn't let it rest." She turned away again, and he almost missed the slight hitch in her voice. "Why did you have to buy that damn house?"

Jane realized belatedly that she was dangerously near tears. This was alarming—Lisbon never cried. The only time he could recall such a thing occurring was when she'd been afraid she was losing her mind when that deranged psychiatrist had poisoned her and tried to frame her for murder. "I thought you liked it," he said lamely.

"Of course I liked it. I liked it too much." She still refused to look at him. "I couldn't figure what was bothering me about it at first. But then when I got back to my own apartment, I knew. I suddenly hated my apartment, just because it was nothing like that house. It was like you took every thought and dream I ever had about what a home should be like and threw it in my face."

"I didn't—" he said, aghast. "I would never—that wasn't my intention."

"Whatever your intention was, Jane, that's what it felt like." She took a deep breath. "I know you feel guilty about your wife and child being killed, and you still want your revenge on Red John. I understand it, even though I don't agree with what you're doing, and I'll help you, to the extent that I can and stay within the law. But I don't want to just be your girl Friday the rest of my life. You may have condemned yourself to living a half life, but leave me out of it. I didn't sign up for that. I want the real thing. I want that house, and someone in it to love me with their whole heart. And for you to dangle that in front of me, when you knew exactly how much I wanted it, without having any intention of ever giving it to me yourself… frankly, Jane, it was just cruel. It felt like you were punishing me for even trying to have that life." She sighed. "Even if I failed miserably."

He couldn't breathe. "Lisbon—"

He needed to be closer to her. He wasn't conscious of moving, but suddenly he found himself pressed up against her on the couch, leaning into her space, his hands cupping the sides of her face.

She leaned away from him, eyes wide in alarm. "Jane, what are you doing?"

He closed the distance between them and answered her question with a kiss. He tried to put everything he'd been thinking and feeling over the past few weeks-hell, the last decade- into that kiss, so she would understand, so she would know, but just in case she hadn't gotten the message, he broke the kiss and blurted out, "I bought the house for you. I want that life, too. A whole life. I don't want to be a stand in."

She looked somewhat like someone had just hit her over the head with a hammer. "You—you don't?"

"No. I want you all to myself. I've been contemplating sending Brian to Siberia in an unmarked shipping container for the better part of the last several weeks." And then he kissed her again, because he needed to taste her again.

She broke the kiss to glare at him. "Siberia, Jane? Seriously? If I find out that you have hurt or damaged one hair on Brian's head, you are going to be very sorry." Then she kissed him back.

"Stop talking about Brian," he growled, pressing his lips to her neck.

"God, I must have been dropped on my head as a child, to prefer you over Brian," she gasped, as he trailed his kisses lower. "He was such a *nice* guy."

"You don't like nice guys," he told her, biting down softly on her collarbone.

"I… do… too…" she said, having difficulty marshalling her thoughts while he was doing that to her.

"No, you don't. You like arrogant troublemakers."

She ignored him and focused on the feeling of his fingers creeping up her waist under her shirt. "It was so refreshing, not being tricked or lied to all the time," she sighed.

"You mean boring," he said, pinching her hip lightly to bring her focus back to him. "Admit it, you missed having someone to yell at. I bet Brian never made you angry, not once."

She leaned up and sank her teeth into his lower lip. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"For you it is. You need someone to challenge you."

"You certainly do that," she muttered, permitting him to kiss her neck again.

"And you need someone to spoil you," he said between tastes. She was just as delicious as he'd imagined. "I told Brian that."

She tilted her head to give him better access to the soft skin of her neck. "You gave Brian dating advice about me?"

"I was trying to be nice, since apparently that is a quality you value. Didn't really stick, though."

He kissed her softly parted lips again, and their tongues dueled together gently. When they parted several moments later, she asked, "What about Toby?"

He shrugged. "You like dogs."

Now she was laughing at him. "You got a dog and bought a house because you were jealous of Brian?"

"Cho told the others that I got a dog and bought the house because I was trying to impress you," he informed her. "He seemed to think that I was trying to prove to you that I could be stable and dependable."

She snorted. "Oh, yeah. Stable and dependable, those are two words I definitely associate with you."

"I can be those things," he told her.

She grew serious. "What about Red John?"

He shrugged. "We'll keep looking for him, and you'll have a much better chance of convincing me to not to kill him than you did before. Still not a great chance, but a better one."

She looked skeptical, but didn't argue. There would be time for that, later.

He squeezed her hand. "It's almost certain that he's going to come after you, you know," he said, his voice breaking ever so slightly. "Because of me."

She touched his face. "We'll deal with it as it happens, Jane. That's all we can do. It's worth it, for me."

"The full life?"

"Yeah."

"Me, too," he said, and was surprised to find that he meant it.

She kissed him again, and for some time, there was no further talking.

The next morning, Cho found a crisp fifty dollar bill pressed into his copy of Wuthering Heights.


	8. Epilogue

Epilogue

Six months later…

Lisbon woke up with a large warm body curled up against her back and a small warm body curled up against her stomach.

She tried to get out of bed as unobtrusively as possible, but failed. Toby opened his eyes and cocked his head to the side in an expression of interest, but the large warm body groaned in displeasure and tightened its hold on her.

"Don't get up yet," Jane mumbled sleepily.

She rolled onto her back and turned her head to look at him. "Jane, I have to get up for my run now or I'll be late to work," she reminded him, not for the first time.

He leaned over and kissed her. "Stay right here," he said, smiling lazily. "I'll give you a workout that doesn't require you to leave the bed."

"I have to take Toby out," she told him. She gently extricated herself from his grip over his grumbled protests and got out of bed. Toby hopped down from the bed, too, ready, as always, to follow Lisbon anywhere she might lead.

Jane glared at the dog. "I knew that mutt was going to cause me nothing but trouble," he muttered.

Lisbon rolled her eyes. The big fraud. Like she didn't catch him sneaking Toby leftovers on a regular basis, no matter how many times she told him it wasn't good for dogs to eat human food. "Yes, it must be a real trial for you to have to sleep in while *I* take the dog out for a run."

Jane pouted. "It is a trial for me. You know I can't sleep without you here."

She leaned over and kissed him again. "Suck it up."

She knew she'd made a tactical error when she felt his hand snake around her waist to pull her closer, drawing her in more deeply. She broke the kiss with a supreme effort of will. "Jane," she said, warning in her voice.

He buried his other hand in her hair and softly pressed his lips to her neck. "What?" he said innocently.

She groaned, feeling her resolve weakening as he worked his lips against her neck. "I have to go."

"But I want you to stay. And you want to stay, too, don't bother denying it."

It was this kind of logic that had caused her to be late to work last week. Twice. She closed her eyes and reluctantly pulled away. "I'm leaving now."

"Fine," he sighed, temporarily defeated. "But you should know I'm not going to tolerate this kind of behavior once we're married. There will be no getting up early for a slavish devotion to exercise."

"I still haven't agreed to that, you know," she said dryly, as she pulled her shirt over her head.

"Meh. I give you another three weeks before you give in," he said, unconcerned. He watched her get dressed. "A month, tops." He yawned. "Wait til you see the proposal I've planned. You won't be able to resist."

"You already proposed," she pointed out. "I resisted just fine." This had happened about a week after they'd gotten together, on what Lisbon considered their third date, and Jane called their seventh date. She'd practically choked on her soup when he'd said the words, but he'd just thumped her on the back and continued to describe their future marital bliss in great detail as though her acceptance was a foregone conclusion. She said no, of course. It was too soon, and she wanted at least one thing regarding Jane's role in her life not to happen completely backwards. He didn't seemed fazed by her refusal. He said that he was perfectly all right with the idea of moving in together first, if she was afraid of getting cold feet and needed to ease into the idea. She ignored him, returning to her soup and hoping he'd give up on the idea and talk about something normal, for once. He hadn't, of course.

It had taken him four months to convince her to move in with him, but here she was, ensconced in his beautiful house—their house, as he insisted they call it ("Really, Lisbon, do you think I would have gone to all the trouble of decorating this all for myself? I would never have bought a Queen Anne style house for myself—I might have gone for a bungalow style, or one of those modern designs you so despise…"), complete with a dog and a picket fence. He'd signed over half of the house to her, despite her many protests, tricking her into signing the papers by sending them in with Van Pelt along with some expense reports while he distracted her with an unrelated argument connected to their current case at the time. Once the paperwork had been finalized, he'd then presented it to her with a red bow on top, claiming that now that he'd made it legal, she was on the hook for half the mortgage, so she'd better start taking the idea of joint home ownership seriously. She'd pointed out to him that he didn't have a mortgage, since he'd paid for the house with money he'd probably obtained through questionable means. He pretended to be wounded that she would accuse him of cheating at poker ("You know I'm good enough to beat anybody foolish enough to sit down at the table with me, Lisbon, so why would I bother to cheat?").

She'd muttered something about his insufferable ego, and he'd smiled at her. "Would it make you feel better if I let you pay half the property taxes?"

It had. She'd felt better about the whole thing from the moment she signed the first check to the County of Sacramento's Assessor's Office, and since then, she'd been able to start really enjoying the house, allowing herself to feel a warm glow stealing over her when she paused to appreciate one of the little touches Jane had added to the house because he knew she would like it. She'd been able to refer to it as their house much more easily after that. Which he'd known she would, of course.

"You won't be able to resist the next one," Jane was saying, bringing her back to the present. "The first one was just the means of laying the groundwork for the real proposal."

She raised an eyebrow at him as she looked up from tying her running shoes. "The first one wasn't real, then? Are you saying you would have backed out if I'd said yes then?"

He laughed at her. "You would never have said yes to the first one," he said confidently. "You're far too practical to allow yourself to be swept off your feet so completely." He looked at her meaningfully. "No matter how much you might have wanted to."

She flushed, and swatted him on the arm. She was childishly gratified to see him wince in pain.

"That's going to be the second rule," he told her. "No getting up early, and no hitting your defenseless husband."

She snorted. "Right. Because you're so good at adhering to structure and rules."

"Third rule," he continued, as though she hadn't spoken. "If you do insist on getting up early to run, I get to help you shower afterwards."

She rolled her eyes. "You're making a rule based on the assumption that your first rule will be broken?" She didn't know why he thought it was necessary to add this last one, anyway. As it was, Jane insisted on 'helping' her shower at least three times a week. Not that she was complaining. She was all for supporting the environment, and she was happy to do her part for the cause of water conservation.

He grinned at her. "Just covering all my bases."

"You're a ridiculous man," she told him.

He smiled at her. "But you love me anyway."

"Eh," she said, with a smile of her own. "You're all right, I suppose."

His smile widened. "Liar." He flopped back onto the bed and watched her tie her hair back in a long ponytail. "What do you want for breakfast when you get back, eggs or pancakes?"

"Jane, I've told you a hundred times, you don't need to go to all that trouble," she said. He insisted on cooking her elaborate meals practically every day, for reasons passing understanding. "I'll just grab some yogurt or something."

"Nonsense. Yogurt is not adequate nourishment," he said sternly. "You need a full breakfast to keep your energy up."

She smirked. "For a long day at work?"

"No, for shower related activities."

He was impossible. "In that case, I want waffles."

His eyes lit up. "You shall have them." He took her hand and pressed a tender kiss to her palm.

Her heart swelled in her chest. Well, if he was going to be like that, she could hardly help bending down to kiss him one more time before she left. "Good-bye, Patrick," she said softly.

He groaned as she straightened up again, taking her sweet softness away from him. He was always undone completely on the rare occasions she used his first name. "Hurry back. I think you're going to need an extra long shower today."

"We'll see," Lisbon said, smiling from the doorway. And she headed downstairs, Toby at her heels, before Jane could pull her even more completely under his spell.

She clipped Toby into his leash and went out the front door, walking up the front path and swinging the gate closed behind them. She realized she was smiling foolishly, thinking of Jane back in their bed, waiting for her to return. He'd lay there for a few minutes, and then he'd get up himself, heading down to the kitchen to make sure her waffles were ready by the time she got back. If she was lucky, there would be strawberries on top.

She turned east, taking deep pleasure in the early morning sunlight hitting her face as she ran up the street with Toby at her side.

She grinned to herself. There would definitely be strawberries.


End file.
